


Selket

by HermitLibrary_Archivist



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-26
Updated: 2008-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-20 14:33:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4790849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HermitLibrary_Archivist/pseuds/HermitLibrary_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>by Jean Graham</p>
            </blockquote>





	Selket

**Author's Note:**

> **Original Author Notes:**
> 
> Previously published in 'Raising Hell 6'. 
> 
> Previously also archived at Jean Graham's.

"Teleport _now,_ Vila!"

Cally's urgent cry woke the thief from a fitful doze. His hands flew to the controls, shoved them all the way forward until the high-pitched whine of the energy-transfer filled the chamber, and three figures rippled into existence there. Only three...

Tarrant, Dayna and Cally spilled out of the teleport alcove in a tangle of weaponry and equipment. Dayna deposited a case of stolen percussion grenades on the console as Vila reached again for the controls and re-depressed the recall switch.

The energy-beam whined and faded, leaving empty air. Vila stared at it, perplexed.

Dayna turned, almost in unison with the other two. "Where's Avon?"

Vila toggled the controls twice more, then moved aside as Cally slid into the seat and began checking co-ordinates. "He was just behind me when I called. I was certain of it..."

+Information,+ Zen's booming voice cut across her words. +Pursuit ship launch from surface, bearing directly.+

"I'll go back," Tarrant volunteered. "Put me down at the same co-ordinates--"

+Second launch,+ Zen interrupted. +Three additional ships approaching from 5th planetary moon. Plasma bolts launched and running.+

"We're in trouble," Dayna muttered.

"Evasive maneuvers, Zen," Cally ordered from the teleport console. "Take us out of--"

The explosion sent them all reeling, clutching for support as the lights dimmed. _Liberator's_ drives sent a straining rumble through the deck beneath their feet as Zen strove to obey Cally's command.

+Breaking orbit,+ the computer reported. +Pursuit ships are moving to intercept.+

Cally and Tarrant exchanged an anxious look. Then both headed at a run for the corridor, Dayna and a reluctant Vila close on their heels. Whatever had gone wrong, it was apparent that Avon would simply have to wait. At least until _Liberator_ was out of danger.

*      *      *

Arcanian bounty hunters enjoyed a galaxy-wide reputation for ruthlessness. It was said that they were not -- quite -- human, which rumor they did nothing to dispel. It was said that no prisoner, once in hand, had ever escaped their clutches, another rumor they revelled in perpetuating. Efficient and unrelenting, they had acquired the admiration of 'peers' everywhere -- even in the Federation High Command, with whom they did frequent business. Not a force to be trifled with, the Arcanians. Never mind that their mineral-rich home world had resisted all efforts to bring it under Federation rule. They were useful, and President Servalan seemed content to leave it at that.

Arcanian bounty hunters were, however, the last thing Kerr Avon had expected to encounter in the midst of a raid on a 4th sector Federation weapons complex.

While the base alarms continued to squall all around them, he sat and glared, secured to a laboratory chair by steel restraints. His armed captors stood watch at the glass-paned door. They had exchanged terse comments in their native tongue, and now appeared to be waiting for the commotion outside to die down. The female, dirty and sporting a shock of straw-yellow hair, glanced back at the prisoner and smirked. She wore Avon's teleport bracelet at her belt, a trophy suspended from yet another wrist restraint. Her male companion scratched at a vermin-infested beard and growled something. She laughed, tucked her blaster comfortably under her arm and sauntered in Avon's direction. He kept his gaze firmly affixed to the opposite wall, ignoring her. That became no easy task, however, as she approached -- the reek was overpowering -- and deftly loosed one of the cuffs, the one that had pinned him to the chair. She locked it again around his wrist, securing his hands behind him as the male looked on, grinning stupidly.

"Perdy, nod he?" he said in fractured Standard, and the female giggled in equally-insipid agreement.

"Perdier 'n' you, Lorga. Zadda bath sumtime inna last yar, least. More 'n' you can say." She stepped back, and her gun came abruptly barrel-to-nose with her glowering captive. "Get up, Kerravon," she said, this time in more coherent Standard that butchered only his name. "We're leaving now."

"Leaving?" Avon echoed flatly. Surely they had no need to go anywhere outside the base to deliver him into Federation hands. They had only to open the door and march him the few hundred meters to the base commander's office.

Lorga took his question as defiance, and stalked across the room to jerk Avon out of the chair with a fetid-breath snarl. "Move!" he barked. His shove nearly sent Avon sprawling, but the woman had attached herself to his arm and was guiding him roughly toward the door. Lorga opened it, peered out, then motioned them on with his gun.

Under the continuing alarms, Avon could hear loudspeakers ordering pursuit-launches. Going after _Liberator,_ he thought with satisfaction. But too late to catch her. Too late and far too slow.

As the Arcanians hustled him down the corridor, a more disturbing thought dampered his confidence in _Liberator's_ successful escape. The base commander's office was back up the hall -- in section D.

They were going in the wrong direction. Toward the launch bays.

*      *      *

"Got him!" Vila crowed, releasing the firing control. The last of the attacking ships blossomed into fiery death on Zen's viewscreen and dissipated into so much space debris.

"Good shooting." Tarrant left the pilot's station to approach Zen's fascia. His clothes still bore the tears and smudges acquired during the weapons raid. Vila had yet to learn how they'd managed to leave Avon behind -- there had been no time to ask.

"I suppose we're going back, now," he said resignedly. "Not that I'd mind losing Avon, exactly. It's just that he's useful, every now and then."

That earned him a reproachful look from both Dayna and Cally. Tarrant merely pretended not to hear. "Zen," the pilot queried, "any sign of further pursuit?"

+Negative.+

"How many ships launched?"

+Five ships launched from planet's surface.+

"And three were already aloft."

+Three ships were in orbit around fourth planetary moon.+

"Does that account for the entire base pursuit ship complement?"

Zen seemed to hesitate at that. Then it droned, +Affirmative. Base complement was seven pursuit ships.+

Even Vila looked perplexed at this contradictory revelation. He knew Zen could be a little thick sometimes, but simple arithmetic had never defeated him before.

Tarrant glanced at them in turn as he continued. "Explain the discrepancy, Zen."

+Information is not available.+

Tarrant winced. "No, of course not. Vila, how many kills did we register?"

"Seven!" the thief replied proudly.

"Well I hate to disillusion you," Dayna said, "but the last time I checked, five and three equalled eight."

Cally frowned. "Confirm seven kills, Zen." +Confirmed.+

"And there are no other ships in the vicinity?" Tarrant inquired.

+Confirmed.+

"Well," Cally said, leaning back in her station-chair, "what exactly are we to make of that?"

"Someone running away, maybe," Tarrant theorized. "Who knows? We'll put Orac on it. Meanwhile, Zen, I want a course back to the base, standard by three. And keep a constant scan for that missing ship."

+Confirmed.+

Vila sat back and folded his arms as the stars on the screen began to rotate starboard. "Avon," he muttered to no one in particular, "I hope you're worth all this."

*      *      *

Arcanian bounty ships were not noted for creature comforts -- less so their holding cells. The cargo hold comprised ten cells; cold, featureless and filthy, divided by heavy sheets of ventilated perspex that had seen better days. It might have been transparent once. Time and a succession of human miseries had left it scratched, cloudy and ochre-brown. Avon did not care to contemplate the various inscriptions etched into the plastic walls; he was more concerned with the mystery of just where the Arcanians might have discovered a price on his head higher than that offered by the Federation. He hadn't been aware of any such bounty. Yet, clearly, it existed. And a high price it must be. Arcanian bounty hunters tended to slave-running if and when wanted criminals failed to keep their holds full. But this ship had only one prisoner.

Servalan, perhaps... He considered the possibility that the president of the Terran Federation, after her recent disgrace at the hands of Sula Chesku (already difficult to think of that woman as Anna -- his Anna), might have chosen to work outside the Administration in order to get her hands on him. Hadn't she offered him shared power on Sarran? Half the known worlds in exchange for his soul. What a pity she was nothing but lies and treachery: he might have been quite content with only one world, had he been able to believe she could deliver it. One world, and the wealth to be free of Federation interference for the rest of his natural life...

The rusty squeal of the cell block door coming open distracted him. Through the circular holes cut in the murky plastic, he could see the woman entering with a bowl of something in her hands. Lorga had called her "Min" when they boarded the ship, an incongruously diminutive name. She was neither small nor in the least attractive to anything other than a Terran bilge rat, which creature she most closely resembled. Shuffling to the door of his cell, she stooped and thrust the bowl through one of the openings. It clumped to the floor and splattered part of its greasy contents onto the plex wall. Avon made no move to retrieve it. The oily- meat odor and the stench of Min herself had already overpowered the stale urine smell of the cell.

"Yer'll get hungry, soon 'r later," she said. "Yer get n'more till that's gone."

He did not look at her. "I suppose," he said to the wall, "it would be of no use to ask where we are going."

A peculiar cooing sound escaped her throat. "Urth Alpha talks very perdy," she rasped. "Very smart, too. Mus' be why 'e's worth so much, eh?"

He allowed his gaze to fall on her then, schooling his features to suppress, barely, the revulsion he felt. "And how much would that be, precisely?"

Her grin exposed crooked brown teeth. "Three 'n' a half mill Fed credits we gets f'yer. More'n three times whut the Feds 'emselves 'd pay. Gon' ta make us maggin rich, yer are!"

Avon was impressed despite himself. Who could possibly have offered a bounty that high, for him? And why?

"Unlikely," he said, and delighted in seeing the grin dissolve from her dirty face. "No one outside the Federation is anywhere near that wealthy."

She snorted, scratching noisily at the crotch of her stiff coveralls. "S'wat yer think. Two days fm now yer'll know differnt." She scuffed away before he could ask any more, the hatch creaking, then banging shut behind her.

Avon sat with his arms draped over his knees, back to the cleanest of the cell's four walls, and contemplated the scant information he'd just obtained. Three and a half million credits and a two day journey by sub-standard drive. That meant they would not leave the sector; would not even clear the next half dozen solar systems. Surely anyone wealthy enough to pay so huge a bounty would not be completely unknown?

Yet he could think of no one.

*      *      *

"I didn't quite hear you." Tarrant's gun pressed itself into the base commander's throat. "Tell me again."

The man coughed and tried to twist away, but Dayna held him, her own gun to the back of his head. "Do as you're told," she warned. "My friend has a rather spastic trigger finger."

Tarrant flashed a grin at her, then shoved the _Liberator_ gun harder into the commander's neck. "Now where are you holding our friend?"

"I told you, we haven't taken any prisoners!" The denial was half-choked by the pressure Tarrant continued to apply.

"We don't believe you," Dayna purred.

"See for yourself then!" The man's hand gestured to the security screens banked on one wall of the office.

Tarrant withdrew the gun, backed away, and flipped the master switch to activate the monitors. Dayna stared in disbelief as the screens flickered to life -- and revealed row upon row of empty cells.

"Try the interrogation section," she suggested. Tarrant did. Three more screens lit. Three more empty rooms. "I told you," the base commander growled. "He isn't here."

Dayna circled in front of him, her weapon teasing. "People don't just disappear. He didn't make it back to the ship."

"Therefore," Tarrant finished for her, "he's here -- somewhere."

The commander squinted at them, considering the possibilities. "Dead, maybe," he offered unhelpfully. "Or..."

Tarrant's gun came back into line with the man's eyes. "Or what?"

"Could've been the Arcanians, I suppose. Would maybe explain what they were doing here."

Dayna saw the subtle change in Tarrant's eyes that might have signalled dismay. "Arc-what?" she asked.

Tarrant's index finger toyed with the weapon's firing stud. "Bounty hunters," he said, and then to the sweating man in the command chair, "I think you'd better explain that. What were Arcanians doing here?"

The man eyed him coldly. "You're Blake's crew, aren't you?"

"Maybe." Tarrant was undeterred. "Answer the question."

"They knew you were coming. Set you up, I suppose, with our weapons for bait. And we had orders not to interfere."

"Don't make me laugh," Tarrant scoffed. "We just blew seven of your pursuit ships to hell, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Decoys," the man insisted, "with mutoid crews. The real ships are still berthed right here, except the four out on patrol. Check for yourself."

"But they fired at us!" Dayna exclaimed. "How could a dummy ship do that?"

"We equipped two with weaponry."

Tarrant scowled. "I knew it was too easy. But it's still a damned expensive decoy. Why? Who gave you the order not to interfere?"

The man shrugged, smiling craftily. "No names, my friend. But it came from the top -- from high command."

"Servalan." Dayna spoke the name as a curse. The base commander said nothing.

"Zen said there was an eighth ship launched," Tarrant recalled. "Our friends the Arcanians, I suppose?"

The commander smiled.

Dayna squelched the temptation to wipe the floor with those teeth. "Where have they taken him?"

"I wouldn't know."

Tarrant bit his lip, thinking for a moment. "Bounty hunters usually want a payoff: that's their business, after all. And they didn't collect it here. So who's paying it?"

"I wouldn't know that either."

Dayna's gun in his ribs made him stiffen and go suddenly very quiet. "Don't know very much, do you?" she queried softly. "We could arrange to make that a permanent condition."

But Tarrant's look said otherwise. A pity. She would have enjoyed killing this worm.

"Cally," Tarrant was saying into his bracelet, "we're wasting our time here. Bring us up."

_Liberator's_ teleport room rippled into being around them then, and Dayna's exhilaration at the near-kill slumped. "Bounty hunters," she said to Cally and Vila's anxious stares. In tandem, she and Tarrant replaced their bracelets in the rack. "Arcanian bounty hunters."

Vila paled. "Oh no. We're not gonna tangle with that lot, are we?"

"They have Avon," Dayna said frostily.

"The weapons cache was a trap," Tarrant added. "For Avon, apparently."

"Wonderful," Vila opined. "And after Servalan and that Grant woman scrambled his brains last week, he was ripe to walk into it. You don't suppose he deliberately...?"

"No." Cally's denial left no room for argument.

"Someone went to a great deal of trouble," Tarrant said. "The bounty hunters could have turned him over to the Federation then and there -- only they didn't. That would seem to rule out Servalan as a candidate."

Dayna had removed her gunbelt and was twisting the synth- leather strap between her fingers. "Somebody wanted Avon badly."

"Somebody got him," Tarrant said, already en route to the flight deck. "Let's find out if Orac's been able to trace that ship."

*      *      *

It might have been two days -- or ten. Boredom had long ago stretched minutes into hours, and Avon admitted relief at the shift in the engine drive that rumbled through the floor plating and telegraphed a planetary approach. At least the mystery would soon be resolved.

When the ship entered atmosphere, he lay prone on the floor and held on to the cut-outs in the plex wall, waiting until g- forces had stopped trying to shake him apart -- or extrude him through the deck plates.

Then the ship was down and another eternity of waiting ensued before the hatch at long last clanged open, and his buyer marched into the hold.

Avon had found his feet, tried his best to stand Alpha-proud behind the perspex door; not easy with the stink of the cell and a two-day growth of beard. Just the same, he met his adversary face to face.

"Servalan," he said, not in the least surprised.

"Avon," she returned, with a ripple of black feathered cloak and flowing gown. "You don't look well. Have my 'agents' been less than hospitable? I shall have them severely reprimanded." Her predatory smile mocked him through the cut-outs. Well behind her, Min and Lorga loitered in the hatchway with the gleam of newfound wealth in their eyes.

"Suppose we drop the frivolities and get on with whatever game it is you're playing at."

"You're the game, I'm afraid. Or more precisely, the bait. You're going to help me destroy a very old enemy, Avon."

"And I suppose I should be honored."

"Oh, you are." Her eyes glittered. "You may not know it, but you are."

She'd started to say more, but was interrupted in mid-gloat by the sudden intrusion of Lorga's gun at her back.

"Dun move," he warned. "I only need _him_ breathin'. C'n get as much fer yer dead as not."

Servalan's face reddened, rage widening her eyes. "You have been paid for your services, you imbecile! Paid very well!"

"An' yer planned to take it all back agin, onc't yer killt us." Min took up fumacious residence on Servalan's right: Avon watched the president's lip curl in revulsion, and smiled his appreciation of the turn of events.

"Your 'pets' appear to have slipped the leash," he taunted.

"Jus' got a bedder offer, tha's all." Lorga poked the enraged president in the back with his weapon. "Ged over there." He herded her into the neighboring cell, slammed the door with a resounding thud, and keyed the locking code with his hammy fingers.

"You'll die for this, Lorga. You have my word on it."

His chuckle held all the warmth of a death-rattle. "Tell it to Selket," he said, and guffawed all the louder as he and Min departed, arm in arm.

Servalan's curses blistered the paint on the closing hatch door.

Avon barely heard her. He was too preoccupied with the bombshell Lorga had dropped in parting. The name of the individual who had doubtless masterminded this entire affair: Servalan's 'very old enemy,' Selket.

Lorga had quite clearly said of Avon, "I only need _him_ breathing," which implied that Selket did indeed have further plans for him. But beyond playing the tethered goat for Servalan's snaring, of what possible use could Kerr Avon be -- to the galactic head of the Terra Nostra?

*      *      *

Not for the first time, Orac proved singularly unhelpful in solving the dilemma at hand.

*Arcanian ships are of antique design and do not contain tarial cell computer technology,* it lectured, as though Tarrant should already have known all of this. *They are also notoriously adept at not leaving a discernible trail.*

Tarrant leaned over the flight couch to address the flashing computer, perched on its stand in the lounge section. "In other words," he chided, "you have no idea where the eighth ship might be."

Orac whirred, irritated. *I believe I have just said that.*

"So much for infallibility," Vila moaned from a near-reclining position on the couch. He'd have spaced Orac long ago, had it been up to him. Damned talking box was more hazard than help, more often than not. Except for that one glorious day in Freedom City...

*I have never claimed to be infallible,* Orac snipped. *Merely superior to any existing human or electronic reasoning device.*

"All right, Orac," Tarrant said. "Time to start earning your keep with that 'superior reasoning' of yours. Why would Arcanian bounty hunters take Avon away from a Federation base, when they could have collected the price on his head then and there?"

*For reasons which you yourself have already surmised.*

"Someone offered them a higher bounty," Dayna suggested.

*Precisely.*

"Who would do that?" Cally asked the question from her place at the piloting station.

Vila, more to the point, asked, "Who _could_ do that?"

Orac's click-and-drone went on for a small eternity before it answered. *There is only one logical possibility.*

They waited. Dayna finally prodded the computer. "Well? What possibility?"

*The Terra Nostra.*

That made even Vila sit up and take notice. The Terra Nostra after Avon? Oh, they couldn't still be smarting over that little fiasco in Space City all those years ago, could they? Or the measly five million he and Avon had taken from that slime-ball, Krantor, in Freedom City. Could they?

"What," Tarrant was saying to Orac, "would the Terra Nostra want with Avon?"

*I am checking possibilities,* Orac replied, and Tarrant turned his probing gaze on _Liberator's_ resident thief in the meantime.

"Vila?"

"Eh?"

"You've known Avon longer than any of us. What could the Terra Nostra want with him that would be worth a higher bounty than the Federation's offered?"

That was a good question. Vila wished he had an adequate answer. "Could be lots of reasons," he temporized anyway. "Maybe they want him out of the way. Or maybe they think he could help them."

Dayna laughed. "Help them?"

"Well you should never underestimate genius," Vila opined. "Avon's one of the greatest criminal minds, outside myself of course, to come along in the last couple of centuries. Maybe the Nostra decided he was wasted out here, hanging around with you lot."

*Or,* Orac put in unprompted, *it might well have to do with recent political upheavals in the Federation. Blake determined over a year ago that Servalan's predecessor ran the Terra Nostra. After the Andromean War, however, and Servalan's seizure of the presidential office, the Terra Nostra was taken over by an individual known only as Selket.*

"I've heard of him," Tarrant said. "What's any of that got to do with Avon?"

*The alliance between Federation and Terra Nostra has never been a stable one. Selket and Servalan are long-standing political rivals. It is conceivable that one or the other may have chosen to use Avon as a political pawn: a means to defeat or destroy the other.*

Vila's head hurt from trying to assimilate all of that. Now he knew why he'd assiduously avoided a career in politics.

Tarrant straightened, sighing heavily. "So where does that leave us, Orac?"

*I will continue searching for some trace of Selket's location. For obvious reasons, it will be well-hidden.*

"For obvious reasons," Tarrant echoed, and strode around the couch to pull Orac's key. The computer squealed to a vocal halt, though its lights continued to flash in incessant contemplation of whatever Orac contemplated. "That would seem," Tarrant said, "to leave us precisely nowhere, for the time being."

*      *      *

With the Arcanian ship back in flight, Avon once again lost track of time. If Min's brief visits were daily, they had been traveling two additional days -- but he could not be certain. He'd made the error, in the interest of odor-control, of dumping the 3- day-old bowl of grease-stew down the fluted sewer pipe in the cell floor. True to her word, Min had delivered another this morning. When hunger had finally driven him to taste it, he'd wretched, decided starvation was preferable, and left it in the corner. Later, he'd dropped it through a cut-out onto the floor outside the cell. At least, from there, it would smell marginally less rank.

Servalan, what little he could see of her through the perspex haze, remained curled sulkily in a corner of the next cell, her own meat bowl untouched. Though the water from the single, naked pipe in each cell wall was semi-potable, she had not touched that either. Unwise, Avon reflected. Dehydration would be lethal far sooner than starvation. At least she had been quiet, and that, in his experience, was certainly uncharacteristic of her.

He was beginning to form a certain clandestine admiration for this Selket. Anyone who could outmaneuver Servalan was devious indeed -- and a force to be reckoned with.

At that moment, he felt the deck vibrate and shift: the primary engines shutting down. But the uncomfortable g-forces of re-entry failed to materialize. Instead, he heard and felt several more heavy vibrations. Were they docking with another ship? Selket's, perhaps?

Next door, he saw Servalan's head come up in reaction to the sounds. Moments later, the hatch swung open to admit Lorga, who stumped past Avon's cubicle to the next and keyed the lock open, grunting with the mental strain of recalling the numerical sequence. Warily, Servalan got to her feet, then tried to retreat into an unyielding wall when instead of ordering her out of the cell, the bounty hunter yanked open the door and stepped inside himself, still grunting. One huge hand rested on the butt of his hand weapon; the other rubbed industriously at his crotch.

Avon came to his own feet on an impulse he could not have explained. Despite an uneasy suspicion of Lorga's intent, there was absolutely nothing he could do -- perhaps he would not have acted anyway. Servalan warranted no gallantry; he personally found it an archaic and self-defeating practice. Yet he moved to the dividing wall and peered through the cut-outs, gripping their edges with barely-controlled fury as the bounty hunter advanced on her.

He should have known better; should have known that Servalan had never been helpless, that she understood the use of sex as a weapon better than any man, and that she had certainly not risen to the presidency of the Terran Federation by fearing her male adversaries.

She laughed, disconcerting both the men in her vicinity. Then the smile flashed itself on, and the eyes glinted, like an old- Earth hawk about to dismember its mouse-prey.

"Why Lorga," she said huskily, "whatever took you so long?"

The bounty hunter hesitated; clearly, this was not the reaction usually elicited from his victims. Then, leering, he grabbed for her, caught her by the throat and pulled her savagely against him. Servalan made no resistance. Instead, she succumbed to the embrace and then counter-attacked, kissing him greedily while her hands explored and stroked the filthy hair, the sweat- stained clothes.

Avon watched and gave vent to a sickened smile. No price would ever be too high to accomplish Servalan's ends, but oh, what this seduction would cost her!

She whispered, enticing, into Lorga's hairy ear, and though he couldn't hear the words, Avon knew precisely what she would say. All the wealth you can imagine, Lorga. I can double your reward. All you have to do is kill my enemy, take Selket's wealth as well as mine. Then, you'll be invincible...

It was working. Avon was as sure of that as Servalan. The brutish Lorga dragged her past the cell door toward the hatch, made to sweep her up and carry her -- except that Min appeared to block the way, with a very large gun in her hand.

Lorga dropped his half-carried burden without grace, proceeded to argue in loud non-Standard with his infuriated shipmate. She advanced on him, yelling, backing him toward the empty cubicle. Lorga bellowed, lunged at her -- and was promptly on his back in the open doorway of the cell, dark blood fountaining from a hole in his forehead. Min screamed at him again, just for good measure, then spun to retrieve her lost 'cargo.' She was several moments too late.

Servalan had gone.

*      *      *

Swearing Arcanian obscenities, Min had stormed from the cell block some hours earlier, leaving Avon alone in the rather unpleasant company of Largo's gurgling corpse. When the woman returned, winded and grim-faced, he knew what the outcome of her search had been. Without advanced computers, finding this particular escaped prisoner aboard even a small ship would be difficult. Two ships more so. Or, perhaps they were not docked to another ship at all. Given an orbiter, or a space station to hide in, Servalan would be virtually invisible.

"I might have told you," he said, "that no one outwits Madame President for long. That's how she came to _be_ Madame President, you see."

Min spat on the floor and scowled at him. Then, unacountably, her grimy face brightened. "Don' matter," she said, and spat again, this time at the body of her former companion. "I get his cut and mine na, on the bounty fer yer. Same as it woulda bin, split, fer the two a yer. Woman's got nowhere t'go, anyhow. Selket's station's contained. Nostra'll get 'er."

He grinned, coldly. "Don't count on it. Servalan is highly resourceful."

She snorted, stabbed at the keypad on his cell door with black and broken fingernails. Her foot bumped the discarded bowl of rancid meat, lashed out and kicked it aside. It skidded into Lorga's dead ribs, overturned, spilled grey-green slime onto a coverall already the same hue. The door scraped open.

"Out," she ordered. The projectile rifle that had ended Lorga's argument pointed its gaping barrel at Avon's midsection. He had no intention of arguing. He strode from the cubicle, gave her as wide a berth as space allowed, kept on in front of her through the hatch and down the ship's main corridor. At its end stood the airlock, cycled open and transfer-linked to yet another hatch. They were met on the other side by a thin young man with a percussion pistol. He held it in both hands, pointed down, and wore a thoroughly bored expression, as though he found this task and these people only slightly less interesting than a trip to the lavatory. Terra Nostra enforcers, Avon supposed, were alike everywhere.

"This way," the bored man said in an equally-bored voice, and they followed him -- across a steel-and-syntheglass span, through the space-station's entryway, into the superstructure.

For a moment, Avon forgot the gun at his back, the enforcer in front of him. His eyes traveled upward to the sweeping lines of ebony and chrome arcing high overhead. At every juncture, the structure bespoke wealth, power, intimidation. Its overwhelming size rivaled even the System's space station, the largest he had seen until now. But then, if you were the wealthiest power in the galaxy, he supposed a little ostentatiousness came with the territory.

They had traveled up a moving stair and walkway, through a curved blue-lit corridor, and at last entered a cavernous room with rounded outer walls, transparent to the stars and the glowing corona of a planet miles below. Subtle lighting inset above the chrome support pylons left the huge room in shadow, lit mainly by the radiance of the gas giant they orbited. Perhaps, Avon reflected wistfully, he had chosen the wrong brand of criminal profession, all those years ago...

"Wait here." The stone-faced enforcer paced away, his dark suit blending rapidly into the blackness. When he returned, his right hand held the gun, his left a bulky metal box, balanced effortlessly on his open palm. This he held out to Min, and the slightest hint of loathing betrayed itself in his silken voice. "Four million, as agreed," he said.

At once, Min's rifle shifted under her arm. She snatched the box, carried it to a table, appeared to forget that Avon or her payor existed at all as she fumbled the latches open and rapaciously counted her reward.

For his part, Avon tried to forget that he was the commodity this noisome creature had just peddled to the Terra Nostra. Perhaps she would spend some small part of the booty on clean clothes and a bath. But he doubted it.

Satisfied, Min banged the box shut. She tucked it under the other arm, brought the rifle back into play, just in case, and without another word, strolled out of the room. Her scuffing footsteps faded away down the long outer corridor.

The enforcer now eyed Avon with open distaste. The gun motioned sharply. "Over here," he growled.

Avon walked in the indicated direction, the man falling into step behind him. They passed through the elongated shadows of three pylons, came to a door that whispered open at their approach.

*      *      *

Inside, Avon saw what appeared to be private living quarters: couches, a bed, sanitary facilities, food dispensers. The enforcer did not follow him inside. Instead, he waited at the door with one hand above the closing -- and locking -- controls.

"Clean up," he said tersely. "When you're required, we'll call." Then he was gone.

Tired, hungry, indignant and bewildered, the Terra Nostra's most recently-acquired 'property' decided on the best course of action. He was going to take a shower.

*      *      *

The walk back to her ship was taking longer than the trip in, Min was sure of it. Had she taken the wrong turn after leaving the walkway? Or had it been at the stairs...? No one about to ask, and why'd they keep this place so damned dark all the time, anyway? You couldn't see dirt for all those shadows...

_Swush. Click._

And what was that?

Someone following her. Someone after the reward, or to take it back perhaps. She hurried into darker sectors, no longer caring how far from the ship she'd strayed, found a niche beneath another moving stair in which to stash the box. More than anything, she wanted to open the box, to conceal the hard-earned fortune on her person, but there was no time. Someone was definitely there, coming after her. She would have to kill them; come back for the money afterward.

Two hands now free to wield the gun, she rode the stairway to the next level. There, she crouched at the foot of a shining metal wall, between bulky potted trees, to wait in ambush for her pursuer. As soon as the head crested the u-shape of the moving stair... well, she would have her fortune, and her enemy would no longer have a head.

The stairs creaked and rumbled, louder than gunfire in the stillness. No one appeared in the 'U.' Min yawned, scratched absently at something crawling beneath her stiffened collar.

_Click. Shumpf!_

Louder sounds. Not from the stairs at all. Somewhere... somewhere above her. Min twisted, contorting herself to look up the expanse of chrome wall, to swing the heavy gun up at the same time--

Something moved, scraped, then plummeted toward her from the top of the wall. She had scant seconds to recognize another of the heavy, plasticrete planters before it crashed to the floor -- and crushed her.

The agony of breathing went on, for a time. Just long enough for her to hear the click of pointed shoes that had stalked her, and the _swush_ of a long black gown descending, slithering past her.

The Servalan creature spared no backward look for the foe it had destroyed, but imperiously mounted the down-moving stair, and melted out of sight, into the shadows.

*      *      *

Clean and fed for the first time in too many days, Kerr Avon waited with ill grace, wearing paths in the expensive carpet. When the locked door finally whirred, released and cycled open, he expected to find the enforcer waiting -- but only the expanse of transparent star-chamber lay beyond. He strolled confidently out, crossed back through the black-and-shadow pattern thrown across the floor by the supports, advanced on the unobstructed curvature of the dome. The last of the gas giant's ionosphere was vanishing, obscured from this port by the station's rotation, giving way to a velvet array of stars and nebulae.

Avon stared.

"Breathtaking, isn't it?"

He hadn't expected a woman's voice. Odd, in fact: it had never occurred to him that Selket would be anything other than a man. Stupid of him. Assumptions like that could cost you, dearly.

"Yes," he said in simple reply. "Thoroughly."

She stepped into the meager light, enough to let him see her: a woman with iron-grey hair, regal carriage, a stern, impassive face. Her clothes resembled the stars behind her, black silk and studded jewels. Avon could not have estimated her age: she was neither young nor ancient, but an aura of something he could only call omniscience clung to her. That was illusory, of course. True omniscience did not exist in the human experience, the expansive powers of the Terra Nostra notwithstanding.

Selket walked -- 'glided' might better describe it -- toward the transparency, halted a few meters from Avon's position. "I trust," she said throatily, "you were not seriously harmed."

The statement took him somewhat aback, for all that it lacked any semblance of concern. Avon responded in kind. "Well now," he said, "I might have asked for a more... hospitable... transport."

Pale eyes assessed him without humor. "That, I'm afraid, was Servalan's doing. It was she who enlisted the Arcanians. We merely intercepted the contract -- and upped the offer."

"And formed a new contract, to deliver Servalan as well?"

"It suited us that Servalan should think so."

He permitted his most sardonic smile to escape then. "Did it also suit you to allow her loose aboard your space station?"

"She has served her purpose, for the time being." Selket looked back to the stars. "One hour ago, she killed the female bounty hunter, and took the Arcanian ship. She will be well on her way back to Earth now; back to what is left of her presidency."

What was left? That sounded vaguely promising. But Avon's questions were forestalled when footsteps echoed in the outer hall. He and Selket turned together. Both watched in silence as the enforcer entered, carrying the same metal box he had earlier given to Min. It made a faint scraping sound on the eliptical table as the man sat it down, opened it and reached inside. The bundled credits so recently paid for Avon's delivery went onto a raised, lighted dais in the table's center, a pedestal that promptly hummed, shivered and descended to depths unknown. It returned moments later, empty, looking like the innocent piece of sculpture Avon had mistaken it for all along. What, he wondered fleetingly, would Vila have made of that?

With a terse nod in Selket's direction, the enforcer departed. After a moment, Avon inclined his head toward the vanished fortune and drawled, "Ah well. So much for wealth beyond a bounty hunter's dreams."

"So much," she echoed, and the faintest hint of a smile curled one corner of her mouth. "And how much wealth is beyond your dreams, Kerr Avon?"

Did that signal a point to all of this at last? Avon hoped so. "That rather depends," he answered candidly, "upon who is doing the asking -- and why."

This time she did smile, though it was not a pleasant expression. "You already know who is asking. As to why... Our reasons are quite simple, really. The time has come for the Federation to fall. We have worked for many years to bring it to its weakest point. Only the death blow remains. A blow which you are capable of delivering."

Uncertain quite how he should respond to that, Avon resorted to sarcasm. "You flatter me," he said.

"It is not our intention to do so." Her tone came very near rebuke, though just shy enough to be somehow more intimidating. "After the Andromedan War, after the palace coup, after years of corruption and abuse, the Terran Administration is at its weakest point in five centuries. Your abilities, together with the Orac device, could topple it once and for all."

"Ah." Avon allowed the single, reactionary syllable to hang, unappended. He might have known that Orac would lie somewhere at the root of all this. Yet the overstatement of its abilities surprised him. He had known from the beginning -- as had Blake, surely -- that Orac's vaunted infallibility was in fact no such thing. Like any other computer, it had limitations, albeit those limitations were far fewer than those of the average system.

Selket strode to the table with the decorative dais. "I take it," she said, "you doubt the feasibility of such a coup." She seated herself on the far side of the glowing pedestal, obscured from the neck down behind its white nimbus, and regarded him expectantly

"You would not be the first," he informed her, "to overestimate Orac's abilities. Omnipotence, I'm afraid, was merely its creator's conceit."

"Perhaps." She did not sound at all convinced. "Yet the Federation's overthrow is still possible, as I have outlined it." Boldly, he moved to the table's edge to stand directly opposite her piercing gaze. "Why?" he demanded abruptly, and when her eyes questioned, he elaborated. "Why, after centuries of... co- operative effort... should the Terra Nostra suddenly desire to topple the Federation?"

The grey eyes became flint. She touched something, and the pedestal retreated again into the table, this time to stay. "We have said -- the time has come."

"That's not an answer."

She paused, folding thin fingers in front of her. "No. Say then that the age of co-operation has ended. Servalan has become a threat, a power-mad force intent on overtaking us for the sake of an old rivalry. She must be removed. The entire governmental system must be dismantled from within."

Avon's hands rested, outstretched, on the ebony glass tabletop. "Don't you think," he queried reasonably, "that if Orac -- or I -- were capable of such far-reaching incursions into Federation Control, we would have implemented them long ago?"

The half-smile returned. "I will provide you with the location and proper access codes to the control system which has replaced Star One. Thus armed, you could program the Orac device to destroy the Administration in less than a day's time."

"Perhaps I should put it another way," Avon countered. "Why should I _want_ to help you?"

"Because we are capable of paying your price, Kerr Avon. Anything you desire. Wealth, safety. A planet of your own, if you wish it. Did you not say, once, that you regarded wealth to be the only reality?"

He blinked, disconcerted. How in hell had she known that? When he'd said it, years ago aboard the civil prison ship _London,_ only two other people had been present: Jenna Stannis, and Roj Blake. Both lost in the war. Both dead, for all he knew.

"Even if I were to agree," he said with a distinctive chill, "what purpose would it serve to replace one computer with another? Or for that matter, one tyranny with another?"

The goad produced no visible effect. Selket touched another control, and minimally, the room lights brightened. "We do not intend that the Orac device should replace control -- we intend to shut it down."

That surprised him, though he didn't show it. "Leaving the known worlds helpless?"

"Leaving them independent, to govern themselves."

Avon's eyes widened in disbelief. "Then, if you'll pardon the expression, what would be in it for you?"

"The Terra Nostra are not in the governing business. We desire only that in the new scheme of things, we should be left undisturbed, to 'do business' as we have always done."

"Naturally." 'Business,' of course, entailed shadow production, slave trading, fixed gambling dens, smuggling operations... A thousand-and-one criminal concerns. But who was counting? "That," he said, "still leaves the question of who is to take control of Earth Administration."

A voice, low and gutteral, came out of the shadows to his left. "I'll be doing that."

Avon wheeled. The figure moving into the light was bearded, scarred, many pounds heavier than when they'd parted -- in _Liberator's_ life capsule bay amidst the Andromedan bombardment.

"Blake."

"Hello, Avon," the apparition said.

Lost for words, the computer tech merely stared for a prolonged, awkward moment. "I suppose," he said at length, "all of this was your idea."

Blake's deep, bass chuckle echoed in the glass-and-ebony room. "Now," he said, "you flatter me. In fact, the plan's been underway for many years. Since long before you and I left Earth aboard the _London."_

"And you've agreed to help it along, have you? In league with the Terra Nostra?"

Blake ambled further toward him, the heavy quilted leather of his overtunic creaking with the movement. "We have... an arrangement," he said.

"Comforting to know that your time since the war has not been wasted. It never occurred, I suppose, that we might be wasting ours looking for you."

From her table, Selket spoke for the first time since Blake had revealed himself. "This arrangement is beneficial to both our organizations. Perhaps Blake has simply learned to accept reality."

"Reality." Avon sneered the word. "What became of the Blake who bragged to Gan that he intended to use the Terra Nostra, not do business with them? The Blake who swore he would never rest until power was back in the hands of the honest man?"

Again, Blake moved, walking past Avon to the opposite side of the table, and Selket's side. "That," he breathed, "is precisely where we intend to place the power."

"Self-ruling planets," Selket said. "Free to choose their own government."

Avon remained dubious. "And Earth?"

"A democracy," Blake proclaimed, as though no other answer were possible. "Power -- for the first time in centuries -- back in the hands of honest men."

"Charmingly prosaic, to be sure." Avon's sarcasm, well-honed, evoked angry sparks in the rebel leader's eyes. "But a democracy controlled -- in whole or in part -- by the Terra Nostra, is at best a corrupt one. Even Vila could reason that out."

"Oh come now," Selket scorned from her chair. "Surely you are not so naive as all that? Democracies have always been corrupt, my friend. They enjoy the singular distinction, however, or permitting a greater degree of individual freedom than most of the alternatives. That factor is of particular interest to us."

Avon deliberately ignored the lecture, aimed his next barb at _Liberator's_ former commander. "I fail to see why you should require my help to set yourself up as a puppet dictator."

He saw Blake's fist clench, the stubborn jaw set. It meant that the bait had been taken, just as it always had aboard _Liberator._ They faced off across the lighted table, assesing each other with glares hot enough to thaw polar ice caps.

Selket, however, appeared little more than amused by their histrionics. "Your role, Avon, is small," she said pleasantly, "but pivotal. As we have already outlined--"

"You need Orac," he interrupted. "It seems to me you would have little difficulty taking it -- and _Liberator_ as well -- now that I am effectively out of the way."

Slowly, patiently, Selket shook her head. "It is hardly that easy. The Federation's auxiliary control systems must be deceived into shutting down 'voluntarily.' For that, we need Orac, yes. But then..."

"Then," Blake broke in, "they will have to be reprogrammed to function as their original designers intended. Operating climate control where it's needed, life support systems, crop management -- aiding, not controlling, the business of living." He paused for a dramatic breath. "Next to Orac, these are the most sophisticated computer systems known to humankind. We need Orac to get at them. But once that's done, only a so-called genius could rewrite and redesign the program to its fullest potential. For that, we need you."

"Yes." Avon hissed the word. "That, it seems, has always been your problem. Is this where you've been all these months -- striking bargains with the criminal syndicate you once vowed to destroy?"

Blake fumed, jaw working under the curls of his full beard. "We are seeking to destroy the Federation," he huffed.

Avon pounced. "They are one and the same, Blake."

"No longer." Selket's placid statement offered a bald contrast to their own heated exchange. "The Terra Nostra have agreed to abolish dealings in the slave trade and certain other activities deemed... distasteful... in exchange for the Rebellion's co-operation in overthrowing the Federation."

Deliberately, Avon ignored her, and turned the full wattage of his glare on Blake. "And you believe them? You honestly expect them to keep their word?"

The bigger man's voice was thunder. "Yes," he grated, "I do."

Avon flung the barb home with a grimace. "You're more a fool than ever you were."

Selket and Blake exchanged a discouraged look, she with hands calmly folded, he shifting weight from one foot to the other beside her. "Shall we take that," Blake asked, audibly tempering his anger, "as a 'no'?"

"Before you answer," Selket said with soft menace, "I should perhaps inform you that we will proceed with -- or without -- your co-operation."

Avon stiffened, impaled Blake with an accusatory stare. "The leader of the great Rebellion would willingly resort to force," he said bitterly. "What ever would the rabble think of that?"

"No force." Selket had overridden Blake's irritated response. "We will seize the Orac device, yes -- and will attempt to accomplish our ends with... lesser... experts in the field. Not the optimal arrangement, perhaps, but one we will accept, if we must."

Avon's reply reflected less egotism than naked fact. "You'll make a muddle of it all," he opined.

"Perhaps," Blake conceded. "I had hoped we wouldn't have to. But either way, the Federation falls. With you or without you, we destroy it, once and for all."

The fervent words sounded more like the Blake Avon had first encountered aboard the _London_. That much, at least, had not changed. The rest...

Avon spun away, paced back through the striated light-and-dark to the transparent wall that held back the stars. When at last he pivoted back to face the table, the long shadows threw an ephemeral barrier between them. "I would require," he said, carefully, deliberately, "...certain guarantees."

Blake's sour expression had set in stone. "Name them."

Name them indeed. More opposite ends of their one-time spectra he could never have expected to reach, with Blake arguing in support of the Terra Nostra, and he against. Who'd have believed that of all people, Kerr Avon should come to find crime -- his chosen vocation, in the overall scheme of things -- objectionable?

"Five hundred million, in gold," he said without batting an eye, and noted with satisfaction that neither member of his audience flinched either. "A planet, central to the common space lanes, but with no intrinsic population. An open casino, built to my personal specifications. Orac..." Blake fidgetted then, but said nothing as Avon resumed the list. "Employees and supply shipments at my discretion. And lastly..." He paused, delighting in the disparate attitudes of his listeners -- one impatient, the other implaccable. "No interference. That means, no regulations, no percentages, no controlling interest, no interference whatsoever from either of your... 'governments.'"

Selket rose, very nearly equalling Blake's height. "We will comply with your demands," she announced without inflection, "after services are rendered."

Avon waited. Blake, made of less stern stuff than his Terra Nostra counterpart, had far more difficulty keeping his composure. The single word he finally uttered, Avon did not fail to notice, came out at a considerable price.

"Agreed," he said.

Once, Blake's word had been his bond. Avon had no guarantees that this remained true, but for the moment, he would gamble on the outcome. For once, he found the stakes sufficient temptation to justify the risk. Then too, there were certain means by which he could guarantee himself an edge. With Orac, specific safeguards were possible...

All right then. He would play. For now.

He nodded, sealing the agreement.

"Dern," Selket said to an unseen intercom on the tabletop. "Tell Urdus I will require his services for the next few weeks. And send a message to the rebel ship _Liberator,_ to read as follows..."

*      *      *

Vila yawned over the teleport controls, thoroughly bored. Avon and Orac had been gone for what seemed an eternity -- three and a half hours, to be exact -- reprogramming this Star Two whatsit on an uninhabited asteroid in the middle of galactic nowhere. And here sat Vila, stuck with monitor duty as usual. He'd hoped at first that having Blake aboard again might change things for the better. But if anything, although the man was more fanatically devoted to his cause than ever, he was also more Alpha than ever -- which meant that _Liberator's_ only Delta still ended up with all the boring, dirty jobs. His joy at Blake's return had been decidedly short-lived.

As for Selket; an alliance between Blake's rebellion and the Terra Nostra was the last thing anyone would have expected. And between Vila Restal and the Terra Nostra there was by no means any love lost. (They probably still wanted his head for helping Avon and Orac break the bank at Krantor's place.) Therefore, Vila had contrived to stay as far away from Selket as possible.

Fortunately, she and that behemouth Arcanian body guard she'd come aboard with had kept mostly to themselves. Avon had said that their part of the deal would come later, whatever that meant.

The thief had just fallen into a comfortable doze when heavy footsteps in the corridor roused him. Blake strode in and down the stairs, looking just as though he'd never been away. No one would ever guess he'd been among the missing for nearly a year.

"Any word?" he demanded without so much as a how-do-you-do.

"I'm doing well enough, thank you," Vila said a little peevishly. "And no, we haven't heard from Avon yet. Probably ran into some foul-tempered computer down there that's been sucking his brains out for the past three hours. Not that he wouldn't enjoy it."

To his surprise, Blake actually smiled a little. "Try calling him on the--" he began, but a chime from the console interrupted him, and Avon's calm, disembodied voice announced that he was ready to come up. Blake's eyes glittered with anticipation as Vila worked the controls, and Avon materialized in the alcove with Orac in tow.

"Is it done?" Blake implored before the teleport's energy whine had died away.

In that maddening way he'd always had about him, Avon ignored the question, and carried Orac to the console, where he produced the key from a pocket and pressed it into place. The perspex computer came to life with a beehive-hum and a flash of lights.

"Orac," Avon said, "confirm shutdown and reprogram of complete Federation Control system."

*I have already done so twice!* the machine complained crossly. *Repetition is an inefficient waste of--*

"Tell us again," Avon coaxed in a silken voice. "Blake..." and there he paused as though the name were a mouthful of bad food, "wants to hear it for himself."

*Oh, very well,* Orac huffed. *The entire Control system has just been disrupted, disabled and subsequently reprogrammed, placing all functions solely in control of the respective planets to which they pertain.*

Blake took a deep breath that almost became a sigh. "And the Federation?" he queried.

Orac buzzed to itself for a prolonged moment. *And the Federation _what?*_ it demanded.

"He means to ask," Avon supplied helpfully, "what is occurring at the Federation's seat of power on Earth?"

*Many things are occurring simultaneously, as you should know,* the little computer grouched. *I really must insist you be more specific!*

To himself, Vila envisioned putting a foot through Orac's smug equivalent of a face. Avon, of course, merely took the box's snobbery in stride.

"What effect has the loss of Star Two had on the Federation power structure?"

*The Federation power structure no longer exists. The immediate effect of Control reassignment was the peremptory removal of President Servalan from office. She has fled Earth in a private ship, and a small war is currently being waged between her former subordinates for command of Earth Administration, or what remains of it.*

Vila had never seen Blake so pleased. "At last," he breathed. "At last, at last."

"Prognosis, Orac," Avon requested. "What are the immediate political implications?"

*Probability A is a 92.55% certainty that rebellion forces already stationed on Earth will overthrow the Administration before it is able to recover. Probability B is a 4.3% chance that the warring factions will choose a clear winner in time to counteract the rebel attack. Probabilities C and D--*

"Thank you, Orac," Blake interrupted. "I think that's sufficient."

Vila had to ask the question that had nagged him since the beginning. "What's to stop them just taking all the computers over again?"

*I am,* Orac answered without hesitation. *Any attempt to tamper with the now-independent control systems will automatically alert me. And I will abort all outside takeovers.*

Vila smirked. "So you believe you've got it all sewn up, do you?"

*Belief has nothing to do with it,* the computer sniffed.

"Indeed?" Avon wore one of his near-smiles. "So if we were to say, for example, that we believe your claim to have accomplished this task, you would therefore question our conclusion?"

Orac's whine changed tempo, oscillating higher and faster. *Simple belief in no way constitutes proof. And as you are no doubt aware, a scientific conclusion requires proof.*

The half-smile became a full-fledged grin. "Orac, you have a remarkably keen perception -- of the obvious."

Blake and Vila laughed, and Orac's buzz climbed another few pitches up the scale. *If you do not wish to be reminded of the obvious, then kindly refrain from asking me meaningless questions!* it snapped.

"Yes, well that's enough for now." Blake turned toward the stairs. "We have one last loose end to see to."

Avon's amusement dissolved like a vapor, and his eyes grew hard once more. "Servalan," he said.

"Servalan," Blake echoed, and then they were both gone, footsteps echoing away down the corridor.  

 


End file.
